


The Incomplete Annals of 1181

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Books, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fishing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: Linhardt researches, naps, and goes fishing with Byleth—sometimes all at the same time.It is the middle of their war.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	The Incomplete Annals of 1181

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aegisunmerge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aegisunmerge/gifts).



The Annals of the Church of Seiros are missing the past five years. The records of the first four months of 1181 have draft papers, filed for the most part beside the leatherbound book marked for the Annals of 1181, but none are completed. The years of the war have left the Church’s recent history vacant, much like Byleth’s own missing memories. 

This parallel occurred to Linhardt, as the majority of his most insightful realisations and best ideas do, after a long, middle of the day nap. It was inspired by napping in the library, which is one of the areas of the monastery that has seen little to no damage. None of the Imperial ballistics had hit the high main tower during the siege as all Church officials had been on the field. The thieves and bandits who ransacked the rest of the monastery had little interest in the library’s heavy tomes and papers. These are not easy to transport and would not sell easily on the black market. Linhardt supposes interested purchasers would have been Count Gloucester or Edelgard herself, but Gloucester’s position is precarious enough and selling to Edelgard would be a recipe to lose a hand or a head. 

Thus, the library is in excellent condition. Even the lock on the main door still works. It is, perhaps, an even better place to nap than Linhardt’s own room. All of the dorm rooms share the same master key, so Byleth is able to come in and wake Linhardt up. They do not abuse this privilege at all, but Byleth seems convinced that Linhardt not only needs to attend all war councils but also all meals. And go outside on rainy days. And join everyone for exercises by the fishing pond. And respond to invitations to join Byleth for fishing, usually in the late afternoon. 

The latter Linhardt always accepts. Byleth only extends such invitations to him, and it is their time together. Sitting on the dock in the mild sunlight and nearly still air, dozing on his pillow or watching Byleth twist a pond snail or insect larvae on their hook: 

“It makes you forget,” Dorothea murmurs. 

Linhardt looks up. Away from Byleth’s calloused fingers, which hold the baited hook still. Beside them on the pier, Dorothea stands, slightly closer to Byleth. She had come to the pier seeking solace because Rodrigue had taken up her place in the high tower. Byleth invited her to stand with them and Ferdinand as Linhardt lay down to continue his earlier nap from the library. Ferdinand had already been sitting on the pier when Byleth and Linhardt arrived, an odd place for him. He does not fish, instead whittling little toy animals from scrap wood. Linhardt assumes they are for the Aegir children who have been born since Ferdinand and their parents fled the Empire. 

“Being back here,” she clarifies at Byleth’s faint questioning noise. “Even with all the rubble and the dust, I can come to the fishing pond and find you fishing and Lin sleeping.” 

“Talking makes it hard to sleep,” Linhardt points out. 

Dorothea smiles. A faint, wan thing but warm and amused. Linhardt has not missed that she has become quite glum since their academy days. Not so much as some others, but he knows she adored Petra, Bernadetta, and Edelgard in her own way. She had even liked Hubert, and he had not entirely disliked her. 

To go into battle against their friends –

Byleth casts their line. Linhardt watched the hook arc and fall. It hits the water nearly out to the middle of the pond with a soft splash. 

Linhardt watches how Byleth eyes this, sharp-eyed and searching. Fishing is for sleeping, Linhardt feels. If it was just the two of them, he could convince Byleth to relax. Sit instead of stand. Take each casting with a mild gaze that reminds everyone of their professor and not the Ashen Demon. 

Byleth slept for five lost years. There is nothing to forget when there is nothing to experience. For Byleth:

They were all friends yesterday, and they still killed each other.

“Ferdie,” Dorothea says suddenly, finally getting Ferdinand to still his knife and look up with raised eyebrows. “Wasn’t it just your birthday? On the…” 

Her last words taper off. From Linhardt’s angle, he can see the way Byleth blinks. Realisation. To anyone else, it would not be obvious, but there is a huge amount of guilt as well. 

_ I forgot. _

Ferdinand laughs. It is not a happy sound, but it also is not mocking or angry. It is the type of laugh a person makes when they have to release tension or cry. 

“We had a hard victory, and that is the best gift I could ask for,” he says, very earnest but with a faint edge that fades as he puts a smile on his face and continues with: “Perhaps I should celebrate on Saint Cichol’s feast day instead! I may be content with that.” 

“Is this what you desire?” Byleth asks, looking away from their fishing line and meeting his gaze. 

Ferdinand blinks. His smile wobbles. He looks away. Back down at his whittling. Linhardt can see now that this toy is a horse. The legs are stumpy, but the knife that Ferdinand is using is a hunting tool. Its handle is very worn, but the blade is sharp and slightly too long to allow for fine detail work. The horse itself has an almost friendly shape with its stumpy legs and slightly too large head. 

“No,” Ferdinand says, and he pauses to blow off a bit of wood shaving from the back of the horse. “If possible, I would see my people home by then.”

“The children should not have to grow like this,” Dorothea says, and her tone is soft and gentle; they all look to her because it is still new to hear her speak so openly. “We can do what we can here, but they need a stable home.” 

Ferdinand nods. He puts the little horse in the pouch he has filled with several other toys. Two dogs, a cat, and what Linhardt has to guess is a bear. It looks far cuter than a real bear must, but that is the point of toys. Linhardt has never seen a live bear. He hopes to keep it that way. 

“At least while we are here, the older children may begin their letters,” Ferdinand says, and he smiles again, brighter and more sincere. “I am very happy about that, even if they complain it is boring.”

This makes Dorothea laugh, and the warmth there makes Byleth smile as well. A small, barely noticeable thing to anyone who does not know them well. Linhardt feels his own lips twitch in response.

“Those old psalters are quite dull,” Dorothea muses, which makes Byleth and Ferdinand both smile wider. “I remember them from when I was very young.”

“I think they are universal,” Ferdinand grins.

“You may thank Linhardt for finding them,” Byleth intones, mild and warm as the breeze.

Linhardt snorts. He closes his eyes again against the brunt of their gazes. Spots of light dance behind his eyelids.

“They were all on the proper shelf in the library,” he sighs.

“Just like my borrowed books were still on the floor of my dorm room,” Ferdinand jests.

Dorothea laughs. Full volume and amused. 

“I found choral scores,” she says, lightly teasing, “but they were on my desk.” 

Movement. Linhardt opens his eyes. She turns towards the dock. At the angle Linhardt views her, she is still pale and drawn, but her eyes are calmer and smile honest. Ferdinand stands as well, reading the atmosphere as he never used to.

“The children have lost so much,” she says, gentle and matter of fact. “Sitting through lessons is good for them, and good for us.

She does not say that they remind her of why they have sacrificed their own youth. She does not have to. 

“Thank you for finding them, Linhardt,” Ferdinand says as Dorothea takes a step towards the bank.

Linhardt does not need to respond. He watches the two of them moving onto the bank together, Dorothea leaning to look at the little toys in Ferdinand’s pouch. He suspects that she will offer to help sand them or paint them, and that will spur Ferdinand to make even more. Hilda will get involved, and she will pull Marianne along. It will all be terribly sweet and distracting between the war, exercises, births, deaths, burials, sacrifices –

“Lin,” Byleth murmurs. 

Linhardt looks up. The light green of Byleth’s eyes is a shade darker than usual. Emotions which Byleth does not voice. That only between the two of them may be shared. 

“What were you looking for today in the library?” 

_ Why have you been hiding from me? _

Linhardt breathes in. Out. 

_ Ah, _ he thinks as he sits up.  _ I understand now _ . 

He stands. His body feels sluggish and lazy, but that is how he prefers to feel. The rush of adrenaline in battle, the hot blossom of pain from a flesh wound, the queasiness and visceral terror at the sight of blood: none of that belongs in his body. Linhardt wants to never feel these things again for as long as he lives. 

And he will feel those things again. So long as the war is on. 

He hopes they can end the war early enough that Ferdinand can retake Aegir for Saint Cichol’s feast day. 

“I,” Linhardt starts as he slouches, reaching to place his hand on Byleth’s left arm to steady himself, “was looking through the Church annals. I wanted to see if anything had been written to tell us where Rhea may have gone, or if she may have had plans, or if there was any knowledge we did not have before the war began.” 

“Did you find anything?” Byleth asks, turning fully to Linhardt, their fishing line and bait long ago abandoned in the water. 

Linhardt shakes his head. “The annals of 1180 had only just been started. The library staff and scribes were in disarray after Tomas –”

He waves his hand vaguely. Byleth nods in understanding. Linhardt had not been part of that excursion and is privately glad. He heard what happened from Lysithea later. He does not think he could survive seeing Byleth disappear into darkness twice in his life. Watching Byleth tumble into the ravine that will forever split the land around Garreg Mach was enough. 

After that battle, Linhardt vowed never to go to war again. For five years, he closed his ears, threw away the letters that came to him personally, and tried to sleep without dreams. 

And yet: 

“When there is time,” Byleth says as they stand together on the pier, “we will have to write in those years.”

A part of Linhardt withers at the prospect. They will have to talk to people. Not just their friends but enemies and neutrals. Writing in those events will come into conflict with Seteth, who still wants to carefully curate the library’s contents. Linhardt foresees many headaches in the future, if this is Byleth’s path after the war. 

Byleth’s lips twitch. 

“You are thinking of how that will infringe upon your naptime.”

“Yes,” Linhardt sighs, but he allows Byleth to hook their arm around his waist, if only because he may lean more of his weight onto them. “But a war infringes even more. I barely got to sleep yesterday.” 

It does not offend Byleth, who called him into battle. Instead, it makes them laugh. Soft and huffy. Their heart does not beat, so their body is not warm, but it is solid and strong. Byleth could carry Linhardt everywhere. They would not break a sweat. 

They are very much alive. 

Linhardt rests his head on Byleth’s shoulder. 

“We have all made sacrifices,” Byleth murmurs. 

Linhardt breathes. In. Out. Not quite asleep. They are, after all, standing up. 

Byleth turns their head. Presses a kiss to Linhardt’s brow. 

They smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to connect with me [on Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://Twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


End file.
